I Am This Woman

Idle hands are the Devil’s playthings.

The Waldorf/Steiner philosophy holds handwork in high regard for the development of the mind through motor control (ha ha, I almost wrote ‘development of the motor through mind control’ — Waldorf joke!). The theory is that handwork can guide the developing young mind as well as express some inner traits not seen in traditional learning methods. Teach a child to knit and you give them a peaceful way to contemplate abstract and spatial reasoning as well as mathematics and even sociology.

Handwork, such as knitting, sculpting, sewing, even gardening, washing dishes, kneading bread or chopping vegetables, gives the mind an immediate task to work on, while other areas of the brain are engaged. If the task can be accomplished by rote, the brain can also wander blithely off to mini-fantasy camp. (more…)

Watch this video, and then think about whether or not this guy has a talent, or a gift.

Britain’s Got Talent - Opera Singer from Cardiff

I would venture to say he has a gift for singing, and the talent required to get up there and do what he did.

I love the expressions on the judges’ faces too, esp. old Simon Cowell.

(When I heard that the guy is Welsh, I was expecting good, but not quite like that!)

Follow-up: the finals of the Britain’s Got Talent 2007 competition is here.

(36 of 50)

You know, even if we didn’t make it to all the “perfect” places in Austin, we made it TWICE to see my Knitting Guru, and that was solid gold.

She is a woman I met when I started attending the UU church and discovered that I was indeed a lifelong Unitarian but just didn’t know what to call it all those years. In 1995, I was pregnant and wanting connection, so I volunteered to teach Sunday School, after Guru J chatted me up and I discovered that we shared similar teaching philosophies.

I began to live for the days when she was able to stay after church talking and gabbling with me until we were embarrassingly the last folks to leave the parking lot, stomachs grumbling for lunch.

Eventually, I found my way to her house, which was filled with books and yarn and music and love. I soaked up the time with her, and mentioned that when I was 40 (which I regarded at the Age At Which Everything Would Be Over), I would take up knitting again. She looked at me a little askew and said, “why wait? I’ve been knitting forever since I was about 8 or 9.” Oh.

So I took up needles and tried again… and fast forward two years, and I have a baby in tow on the way to Australia on a lark, and my Make-Mistake-Snake on the needles on the plane. I completed this lovely snake toy for my child, having learned much about tension, switching from purl to knit and back again, dropping stitches, joining seams, slipping the first stitch on the row and counting each row each time to see that I did not drop a stitch.

Many thousands of conversations, games, visits, food, stories, books, yards of yarn and years later, and we were sitting around her table again tonight, talking a blue streak right up until I had to run out to dinner in order to get to sleep by 11 or so. And still we have conversations, knitting work and stories to finish and show/tell each other another time.

Tonight, I showed her my very favorite birthday present, a compilation art technique book that someone gave me thinking it wasn’t much of a gift, but it was better to pass it along than to toss it. OMG, both of us raved and drooled over it for an hour. She said, “Oh my, I LOVE THIS. It gives me SO many ideas!” EXACTLY! That’s the magic of it!

Such a treasured friendship. I am truly blessed, and to that she would say, “oh well, you know, it’s just what we do, isn’t it? No big deal. Glad to see you anytime!”

And later, my darling child said, “J is so sweet.” Why? I prompted. “Well, she just UNDERSTANDS what I’m into. She listens.”

Wow. Yes. That from a 12 year old who is priming himself for a typical but very non-conformist teenage (just like all teenagers). For both of us, we have a role model for very different (but really just the same) reasons. And that is just awesome.

Now all I can think of is what should I make her! I have a very good idea. Heh heh…

(30 of 50)

First of all, unless I do three entries a day, I am not going to get to 50 by next Sunday, which IS MAH BIRFDAY!!!! yay! yay! I’m not mad enough to try that, or think that it would be worth reading. But I may continue with daily entries until I indeed do have 50.

Secondly, I haven’t exactly been delving into the Deep Stuff. This birthday so far hasn’t seemed to be as momentous as 40 was. 30 was pleasant and rather sad. I was desperately unhappy at 30, and the day was made worse by an unwelcome celebration at work, if I remember correctly. In fact, it is rather funny (both in a ha-ha way and in a peculiar way) that other people assign so much meaning to one’s birthday even when you don’t. 50 is a number. When you are not yet fifty, it seems impossibly OLD. But days from 50, I feel like I’m truly in the middle of something. Not old. In the middle. Busy. Occupied. Booked up.

My creativity has been dampened this week. I’ve felt it sort of lying there in a wet little puddle in the corner, occasionally whimpering and sighing, “Oh please, let’s do something with paint. Or fabric. Yes, with fabric.” And then it slumps down again, just wistful and Edwardian and all want and no have.

I know that by directing some energy over toward that corner, that things will start to flow again. I know that ideas and experiments will be there when I am ready. During our recent trip to see the Prince Caspian movie in the Narnia Chronicles, I found myself drifting off the storyline (some would argue, “what storyline?”) and noticing the clothes. I wanted to remember how the clothes were constructed so I could make myself some cool period clothes, and my son a puffy shirt that looks very masculine and royal. I also have decided to make a mask like the helmets that the Telmarines wore (think Spaniard conquistadors).

The flow is there, when I want to release it. For writing, it’s much much easier, both because the medium is so simple (word processor, blog, keyboard - just start putting words down) and because it’s my preferred and oldest practice. But I also know that when I open some Sculpey, sit down with scissors and cloth, or pick up knitting, the same process is there. With some variations, but it’s there for me when I seek it. That’s one very very nice thing about 50. My creative process is a known quantity, an ever-evolving entity that I’m smack in the middle of.

For you, gentle reader, think today of ebb and flow. How would you map your process? Start in the middle with a work in progress. If you unravel time, where was the inspiration for that item? where were the ebbs and where is the flow? Did you find a flow, or was there something in the way?

It’s Sunday, and for me, I hope it rains because that will be loads of quiet “boring” time inside with books, fabric, yarn and ideas. (The border collie disagrees with me. She must go RUN!)

(27 of 50) (not to be confused with Greta Thragnusdottir’s magnum opus - a much later but fragmented text which is considered to be the first Icelandic historical romance)

I suppose it is time to begin the story about how I discovered these Icelandic texts. I had always meant to reveal them in appropriate academic channels, but since I am no longer an academic, I can perhaps allow myself a little leeway. The problem is, however, the only other person in the Universe who ever expressed any interest in these important works was my father, and he has now passed on. In fact, if you look at the Moultrie (Georgia) High School Library check-out card for 1935-36, you will see only his signature (and one overdue fine).

Thragnussen was lesser known. Ok, he was unknown until his eddas were discovered in the 19th C. by a sheepherder, and documented by a fellow from the British Museum who had traveled to Iceland for the hákari, which he believed to be a cure for toe fungus.

(I’m sorry. I’ve run out of time tonight to finish this truly fascinating and little known story from literary history. More soon.)

pretty in pink biscornu 05-08, originally uploaded by tmcg61.

(23 of 50)

This is a “biscornu” done by my dear friend Terri. It’s possibly the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen! A little pillow (way way too pretty for pins) on its own pedestal!

Even if it is a kit, there is an essential pleasure one gets from making something so pretty from bits and bobs of string and buttons and wood. Everyone who sees it can enjoy that pleasure, but only the maker gets to experience the transformation from ordinary kit to EFO (extraordinary finished object).

Actually, I believe this is the lounging cushion for a petite and lovely faerie.

(22 of 50)

My dear friends, family, readers and listmates,

I will be 50 on my next birthday, which is JUNE 15. That is less than a month away, so get ready for some fun.

This birthday is very momentous for me. Not just because it’s one of those decade-milestone birthdays, but also because of the recent major life events that all seemed to cluster up in my late 40s. Deaths and endings of several kinds, with some new beginnings seeded and now beginning to bloom. I thought about hiding my head in the sand, lying about my age but I’d rather hit it head-on and redefine my life.

I will be starting a new business venture in a few weeks, I have some travel planned on the order of “a trip of a lifetime,” and there are other tectonic plate shifts happening below the surface, which may (with all due diligence and hard work) produce some new writing.

But enough about me. For my 50th birthday, I wanted to give everyone a present. But I really (truly) cannot afford that. (more…)

(19 of 50)

This video is really amazing and wonderful, and slightly creepy (too much Twilight Zone).

I love how the marriage of technique, art and performance work to bring life to this girl, and then the video is a lovely little vigniette with the music and editing. Golf claps to the little girl and her footmen!

I also love how a group of creative people can get together and find cool stuff like this. I ganked this link from the lovely and talented LMNOP on Ravelry. (Not her real name or spelling of her username as I don’t exactly have permission to name her here.)

(15 of 50)

I’ve been trying to upload a silly video of my silly dogs in the back yard for two days now, but the software (iMovieHD) I was using doesn’t have an automatic YouTube output setting. So, the result is a really bad QuickTime video that snapshots all over the place. Not very appealing.

There is an “upgrade” for iMovie in iLife 08, which I have, but I lose the timing and transitions when I port it over into the new one. So it’s back to the drawing board to re-engineer the thing.

That’s a technical snafu. Happens all the time with any kind of creativity - you lose a Word doc in a crash, your paint separates or cracks, your yarn breaks or bleeds, the glue dries out or the paper just won’t cooperate with your vision.

So you do it over again. I try to tell myself that it means I will learn more, have a chance to make it better. But right now, I have an empty blog page and a missed self-imposed deadline. C’est la vie!

(14 of 50)

Things here at Lizard Lodge have been going along really well of late. We’re feeling a burst of creativity as the leaves pop out on trees and start loading up the chlorophyll. So many greens! I’ve been so amazed at the greens that I’d almost forgotten about the bluebonnets. But I saw some bluebonnets yesterday which reminded me that I need a wildflower fix and soon. The yards, fields, parks and highways are a riot of growth, colors, photosynthesis and life.

The boy has begun to explore iMovie and YouTube. At last. He’s been a video camera owner for a couple of years, but never showed an interest in putting it all together. But perhaps he’s been incubating. However, now, his desk, the dining room table and all available flat surfaces in his room are taken up with Bionicles who are the stars of his movies. (more…)